parados wrote:Finn dAbuzz wrote:JTT wrote:
What is your measure of responsibility now, for the lives and well-being of any captured Americans or other troops of the coalition of the easily duped?
To the extent that supporting waterboarding increases the chances of captives being tortured by al Qaeda or Iraqi insurgents, I would indeed, by my argument, bear some measure of responsibility.
But of course, it doesn't.
These fellow weren't all about the Geneva Convention until they found out we used waterboarding on terrorist prisoners.
There are enough good reasons to oppose torture without trotting out this ridiculous canard.
This isn't about Al Qaeda. This is about instances where US (and our close allies) soldiers are picked up in the territory of other countries, the US plane shot down over Chinese waters. the British sailors picked up by the Iranians. Those instances may seem remote but they do occur. If waterboarding isn't torture then why can't they do it?
Waterboarding, I'm sure, is a terrifying experience. Otherwise it would not work. It is an extreme interrogation method, but I do not consider it torture because it is not likely to kill, maim, or psychologically ruin.
It would be hypocritical in the extreme to insist that our enemies not use waterboarding if we do, but if they used it in the way I propose it be used, it would be hard to mount much of an outrage against them.
It really is an irrelevant consideration though. Iran and China will use it whether or not we do. It is silly to think that if we do not use extreme interrogation methods that our enemies will follow suit. They can and will do whatever they please as long as their current regimes are in power.
The attempt to set rules around warfare seems to me to be an obscene self-delusion. Unless one is an absolute pacifist and willing to be conquered rather than fight, there must be some conflict in which one will support involving the US military. If one can rationalize the necessity of putting fellow citizens in danger of being blown to bits, dismembered, rendered brain-dead, burned alive, drowned, and all of the other horrible possible outcomes of "conventional" warfare, I find it hard to believe one is able to draw a bright line between these horrors and other "immoral" ones.
Again, there are a number of reasonable arguments against torture. The use of the "but it will allow our enemies to torture our troops," argument is nothing more than a transparent and feeble rhetorical gimmick.
